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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs One Identity Safeguard comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
139
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
One Identity Safeguard
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (6th), Privileged Access Management (PAM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and One Identity Safeguard aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 29.9%, down 31.4% compared to last year.
One Identity Safeguard, on the other hand, focuses on Privileged Access Management (PAM), holds 4.8% mindshare, down 5.6% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
 

Featured Reviews

Vergin Mansour - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 3, 2023
Improved our security resilience and helped to consolidate different applications
The one main thing that it can improve on is the GUI. As the newest addition to the team, I struggle a little bit to get around it just because it has so many features. This is an amazing thing but the downside of it is that it's not as friendly to figure out which feature does what and how to get to it. You have to go through a lot of menus to figure out what you need. Although it's fantastic, it's full of different options that are endless, it does get a bit hectic for new users to get comfortable with it. It's taking me a while to figure out all the features and options.
SA
Sep 26, 2023
Fast to implement and has good pricing but lacks documentation
We use the on-demand version. We use the solution for monitoring and connection to the customer's server for Windows and Linux It's easier to connect to the server and it makes it more secure. We've seen about a 40% improvement in that regard. The monitoring system is very good. It has a very…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"They provide you multiple ways to achieve security, not only on-prem, but also when you have remote and guest workers. Especially post-pandemic, a lot of our customers have remote workers. So, it has been really helpful."
"Using this solution gives us the ability to allow proper access to the network."
"A lot of customers use a third party to manage their guest Wi-Fi. Cisco ISE presents the ability to bring that in-house so that customers can have full control over it, change the branding, and get extra telemetry from it and the user data. It works really well for our customers."
"Having access and being able to add people or change authentication yourself is nice. In the past, we've used other group authentication services, and we always had to go to them and get permissions. Having that control is key."
"Being able to authenticate wired users through 802.1X is valuable as it enhances our security."
"The most valuable feature is AnyConnect Posture because it scans all the programs on the workstation and checks if the antivirus is up to date, as well as the cryptographic keys on our SSD."
"The feature that I most like is that it can notify me whenever someone plugs in their device, which is not allowed. I get notifications for new laptop devices. I think the user interface looks good compared to previous versions."
"I love the policy sets, they are really nice and dynamic."
"I like the discovery functionality and the change password feature through the check-in. I also like the bulk import with the help of templates that come with it out of the box. With the help of these few features, my tasks are made easier."
"The whole product solves the privileged access management challenge for our company. We have a secure tunnel, a secure session manager, and automatic logging of sessions, which is good for forensic purposes. We have a rich level of logs and can trace what happened on which machine and see who did what."
"There are a lot of features, so it's going to sound funny, but one of the most simplistic features, the Favorites feature, is the one we like the best. You do a full run-through of configuration to check out a server and then you can save that whole configuration as a favorite. So the next time you go in, you click on the favorite that you configured and it automatically takes you to the end so you can check the server out that much faster. It saves a lot of time..."
"The system is easy to manage, as it is not a system that you will change everything all of a sudden. It evolves most of the time with customer requests."
"The most valuable feature of One Identity Safeguard is the user-friendly interface."
"I like that One Identity Safeguard lets you configure the maximum number of connections to the target, a configuration I didn't find in its competitor."
"It offers high availability and enables end users to deploy the solution with 99.999 percent uptime, which is crucial in an enterprise environment with a large number of endpoints."
"The solution's most valuable features are the efficiency and the quality of the recording."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see an easier way to upgrade to larger versions, as well as more best practices that are easier to locate on their support page."
"Cisco ISE could be simplified somewhat. I would also prefer certificate-based authentication over confirmation-based authentication for all the processes. It's possible for us to do a workaround, but the process needs to be simplified."
"There is room for improvement in CLI. Most things are done through the GUI, and there aren't many commands or troubleshooting options available compared to other Cisco products like switches and routers."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The solution lacks properly knowledgeable support, especially internationally, and this is why I am exploring other applications."
"There are always some things that I would request."
"Compatibility and integration with other vendors is what needs to be improved in Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine)."
"The compliance and posture don't always work. They should make it more stable. With each upgrade, we lose some functionality. We have to wait for another upgrade."
"Our experience with technical support has been disappointing. We require more prompt and faster response times. We require answers to our questions right away but we haven't received that level of support."
"We have feature requests and would like to see the turnaround times on those features to be faster."
"From a usability perspective, what we are finding out is that our privileged domain admin users, in particular, want functionality for extending a checkout session. So we are working with One Identity support to see if there's an enhancement that can be made to the product."
"The SPS could be a lot easier to administrate and the parts should be unified, from a design perspective, so that I can recognize the systems as being part of the same package. They feel like they have been forced together."
"Some of the out-of-the-box reporting isn't that rich. We spoke to our Safeguard reps who have acknowledged that some of the reporting features can certainly be improved and that we're not the only customer who has cited this. There are very little out-of-the-box reporting capabilities. You have to build the queries and the report. I believe in the next release they're going to be addressing this."
"We can't review or audit HTTP and HTTPS. This functionality should be added so that we can review and audit HTTP and HTTPS."
"One Identity Safeguard can improve by having more integration with multiple devices."
"Something for One Identity to look at is having integration guidelines for how to logically group accounts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have complaints. I don't enjoy the licensing model. Once we moved from 2.7 to 3.1, switching from Base, Plus, and Apex to Essential and Advantage in Premier, we went from a perpetual, with our base licenses, to now a subscription-base. So, we will have to renew those licenses every year, and I'm not a fan of that for our base licenses. Apex/Premier, we already expected, which is fine, but for basic connectivity, I am not a fan of that."
"Cisco ISE is not inexpensive, but the solution is well-built and worth the expense."
"Its price is probably good if you use all of its features and functionalities to protect your environment. If you use only a part of the functionality, its price is too high. It is just a question of value and the functionality you use."
"The licensing is subscription-based and based on the user account."
"The licensing can be confusing, but it is still pretty good."
"Previously, Cisco ISE had a perpetual licensing model, but now they have shifted to a subscription-based licensing system."
"In terms of the licensing and the pricing structure of the Cisco Identity Services Engine, there's been a huge advantage to our clients recently with the advent of the enterprise agreement."
"If you're not going through an agreement, it's very expensive."
"It was definitely cheaper than the other two products that we evaluated."
"The license is very expensive for us, partly due to inflation and partly because of the exchange rate between the Dollar and the Iranian Rial. We purchased a perpetual license that we've been using up until now, but I believe that we are not going to update it in the future. Instead, we plan to find another third-party to support us with the license, in the sense that we would have access to their license as a shared agreement."
"The full license is expensive but if you plan to use it in a big organization then it is the best option because it is more flexible."
"The pricing depends on our perspective, our budget, and, of course, the competitors we are taking into account."
"Safeguard is cheaper than CyberArk."
"The license is around $3,000 per month."
"The pricing is about $80,000 per 100 servers. There are few elective costs."
"It is a bit on the pricey side, but you get what you pay for. You don't want to get anything too cheap because then you get cheap stuff and cheap support. That really never helps anybody."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
What do you like most about One Identity Safeguard?
The identity discovery is good, and the performance is pretty good value.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for One Identity Safeguard?
One Identity Safeguard is expensive. The license is around $3,000 per month.
What needs improvement with One Identity Safeguard?
One Identity's support is not appropriately structured, and it has a lot of room to improve.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
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